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Ensuring clean water supply for all people and conserving life below water are among the global SDGs. However, almost all of the Earth's waters are impacted, if not clearly altered, by human use. That is why many initiatives are currently being taken to restore peatlands, flowing waters and their floodplains, lakes and other stagnant waters. Researchers at IGB are exploring how best to go about this.

From water to air: we only know many flying insects as adults, but many of them have their first life stages in the water. The larvae of mayflies, for example, spend almost a year in the shallow shore zones of standing waters before they come ashore for a few days as adult flies. These so-called semi-aquatic insects are an important food source for animals in the water and on land and are used as bioindicators to assess water quality and the state of freshwater ecosystems.

Imagine being able to access a virtual platform that not only provides access to data from a wide range of aquatic disciplines but also enables smooth processing and analysis of the data. This vision could soon become a reality through the EU project AquaINFRA, where IGB is an important contributor.

IGB researcher Lynn Govaert has been awarded funding under the Emmy Noether Programme. Her project will focus on the question whether we can predict species and community responses to environmental change based on the strength of the key interacting evolutionary and ecological processes.

Freshwater biodiversity is declining at alarming rates. In a large-scale effort, a research team led by IGB and the Humboldt Universität zu Berlin (HU) in cooperation with angling clubs, has conducted whole-lake experiments in 20 lakes to improve ecological conditions. Habitat improvements were the most effective means to enhance fish populations, whereas fish stocking completely failed. The study published in the journal Science emphasizes the importance of restoring habitats and improving natural ecosystem processes, which benefits fish populations, conservation and fisheries.

The ongoing war in Ukraine is having multiple impacts on the country’s water sector, according to a recent study led by IGB and the Senckenberg Society for Nature Research (SGN) that has been published in the journal Nature Sustainability.  In addition to the horror of the direct consequences of war, the destruction of water infrastructure also carries long-term consequences and risks for the population, the environment and global food security.

Not only forests and dry pastures can burn, fires can also start in peatlands. However, due to the soil moisture and lacking oxygen in the soil, the land does not burn ablaze, but smoulders. These smouldering fires can release considerable greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, because peatland soils store much more carbon than other soils and also large amounts of nutrients. Researchers led by the University of Rostock with IGB have now shown that smoldering fires in peatlands therefore also involve a high risk of polluting adjacent freshwaters or groundwater.

Mass developments of cyanobacteria, so-called blue-green algae blooms, repeatedly threaten the quality of water bodies and drinking water resources worldwide. Cyanobacteria are considered to be heat-loving, and massive algal blooms are reported mainly in summer, when monitoring is particularly close. Now, an international research network involving IGB has shown that cyanobacterial blooms can also occur at colder temperatures - even under ice. If the algal blooms go unnoticed, there are risks to drinking water production.